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A Turing-like test for biological modeling

Nature Biotechnology volume 23, pages 495–496 (2005)Cite this article

The grand challenge

Many characteristics of man-made systems, especially those termed reactive by computer scientists, are central to the dynamics of biological systems too: heavy concurrency (simultaneity), event-driven and time-dependent behavior, cause-effect phenomena and distributed control. These occur from the atomic level, via the molecular and the intra- and intercellular levels, to full organisms and even entire populations, suggesting that biological systems can be modeled (that is, reverse-engineered, simulated and analyzed) using methods and tools developed for the engineering of complex man-made systems. Recent results from small-scale modeling efforts have been extremely encouraging2,3,4,5,6.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Weizmann Institute of Science, Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, PO Box 26, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    David Harel

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  1. David Harel
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Harel, D. A Turing-like test for biological modeling. Nat Biotechnol 23, 495–496 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0405-495

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